POLICE officers had to listen to vile threats against them and their families, with one left in a panic she may have caught Covid after now-jailed Joshua Honan deliberately tossed bloodied phlegm into her eye.

As reported earlier, Honan, 23, of Ocean View Road, Ventnor, was imprisoned for 18 months by an Isle of Wight Crown Court judge on Monday after he admitted six counts of assaulting police officers, making threats to kill, possession of a Stanley knife and a public order offence, on May 26.

PC Taylor and PC Lacey made harrowing personal statements of the effect Honan's actions had on them — describing the prolonged incident as one of the most horrific in their long police careers.

In her victim statement, read to the court by Edward Elton, prosecuting, PC Lacey said: "Honan had been consistently verbally abusive towards me throughout the encounter. However, when he aimed and flicked a combination of thick saliva and blood at me, which landed directly in my eye, I immediately had to turn and walk away in horror.

"The thought of this in my eye initially made me feel sick to my stomach. I panicked as to what possible disease could be borne in a fluid now entering my body — particularly in this time of the pandemic — and what disease I could be unwittingly bringing home to my family.

"Every time I think about this incident, or whenever Honan's name is mentioned, I recall the feeling of the spit hitting my face — the revulsion, the feeling of sickness and the worry. This will stay with me."

In his statement, also read to the court, PC Taylor said: "During this incident I was scratched, kicked and had bloodied phlegm thrown at me.

"It left me with several scratches to my hands and a kick to my left shin, which remained sore several weeks after the incident.

"I experienced some of the most horrific threats made against myself and my family.

"I've been a police officer for more than 19 years and have to say, out of the thousands of incidents I've attended and dealt with, this was one of the most disturbing.

"I've had threats made towards me in the past, but never have they been said with such determination, or in such detail, of how someone would wait for me outside of work and ensure my family watch when I get my throat slit open.

"The act of spitting or throwing thick, bloodied phlegm at myself and a fellow officer is absolutely disgusting — more so in that we're in the midst of a global pandemic.

"The affect it has had on me and my family cannot be quantified."

PC Packham, bitten but not injured by Honan because he wore knife-resistant gloves, added: "I'm not often shocked by the way people behave, or the things they say, but throughout Honan's detention he made vile threats to rape our partners and children and repeatedly made reference to finding us off duty."

Mr Elton, in his summing up, told the court: "For at least two of the officers, it was one of the most horrific incidents in their long police careers."